“I don't know. This way.” I could barely follow the sound, but I knew who it was. Part of me always suspected I could find Lena no matter where she was. I couldn't explain it, I just knew.
It made sense. If our connection was so strong we could dream the same dreams and speak without speaking, why wouldn't I be able to sense where she was? It's like when you drive home from school, or some place you go every day, and you remember leaving the parking lot, then the next thing you know you're pulling into your driveway and you don't remember how you got there.
She was my destination. I was always on the way to Lena, even when I wasn't. Even when she wasn't on her way to me.
“A little farther.”
The next twist in the passage revealed a corridor covered with ivy. I held up my torch, and a brass lantern lit itself in the middle of the leaves. “Look.” The light from the lantern illuminated the outline of a doorway hidden beneath the vines. I felt along the wall until I found the cold, round iron of the latch. It was in the shape of a crescent. A Caster moon.
I heard it again, laughter. It had to be Lena. There are some things a guy just knows. I knew L. And I knew my heart wouldn't lead me astray.
My chest was pounding. I pushed open the door, heavy and groaning. It opened into a magnificent study. Along the far wall of the study, a girl was lying on an enormous four-poster bed, scribbling in a tiny red notebook.
“L!”
She looked up, surprised.
Only it wasn't Lena.
It was Liv.
6.15
Wayward Soul
The first moment hung in the air, silent and awkward. The second erupted into noisy confusion. Link yelled at Liv, who yelled at me, and I yelled at Marian, who waited for us to stop.
“What are you doin’ here?”
“Why did you leave me at the fair?”
“What is she doing here, Aunt Marian?”
“Come in.” Marian pulled the paneled door open and stepped back to let us pass. The door banged shut behind me, and I heard her bolt the lock. I felt a surge of panic, or claustrophobia, which didn't make any sense because the room wasn't small. But it felt close. The air was heavy, and I had the feeling that I was standing someplace very private, like a bedroom. Like the laughter, it felt familiar, even if it wasn't. Like the face in the stone.
“Where are we?”
“One question at a time, EW. I'll answer one of yours, and you'll answer one of mine.”
“What's Liv doing here?” I don't know why I was angry, but I was. Could anybody in my life be a normal person? Did everyone have to have a secret life?
“Sit. Please.” Marian gestured to the circular table in the center of the room.
Liv looked irritated, and got up from her spot on the bed in front of an impossibly lit fireplace, the smoldering fire white and bright instead of orange and burning.
“Olivia is here because she is my summer research assistant. Now I have a question for you.”
“Wait. That's not a real answer. I already knew that.” I was every bit as stubborn as Marian was. My voice echoed across the chamber, and I noticed an intricate chandelier hanging from the high, vaulted ceiling. It was made of some kind of smooth, white polished horn, or was it bone? The ironwork held long tapered candles that lit the room with a delicate flickering light, illuminating some corners while leaving others dark and unexposed. In the shadows of the far corner, I noticed the spindles of a tall, ebony four-poster bed. I had seen a bed exactly like it somewhere before. Everything about today was one monster déjà vu, and it was driving me crazy.
Marian sat back in her chair, undeterred. “Ethan, how did you find this place?”
What could I say with Liv standing next to me? I thought I heard Lena, sensed her? But my instincts led me to Liv instead? I didn't understand it myself.
I looked away. Black wooden bookcases ran from floor to ceiling, crammed with books and objects of curiosity that were obviously the personal collection of someone who had been around the world and back more times than I had been to the Stop & Steal. A collection of antique bottles and vials lined one of the shelves, like in an old apothecary. Another was stacked with books. It reminded me of Amma's room, without the stacks of old newspapers and jars of graveyard dirt. But one book stood out from the others: Darkness and Light: The Origins of Magic.
I recognized it — and the bed, and the library, and the immaculate arrangement of beautiful things. This room could only belong to one person, who wasn't even a person. “This was Macon's room, wasn't it?”
“Possibly.”
Link dropped a strange ceremonial dagger he had been playing with. It clattered to the floor, and he tried to put it back on the shelf, flustered. Dead or not, Macon Ravenwood still scared Link plenty.
“I'm guessing a Caster Tunnel connects it directly to his bedroom at Ravenwood.” This room was almost a mirror image of his bedroom in Ravenwood, with the exception of the heavy drapes that blocked out the sunlight.
“It may.”